Fun in the sun

Ross County 2 - Celtic 0

The wee team triumph! Fantastic.

Not only did they win the game, they were the better team. The first division minnows outplayed the Premier giants.

And... this wasn’t a midweek replay on a sodden pitch at a tiny football ground - it was a showpiece semi-final at the national stadium, in bright sunshine. Big stage, big occasion, huge performance by County.

I should note that I’m not a Ross County fan, but I do like to see the underdog come out on top - and this was an epic tale of the underdog. A cup shock that will become a legend.

So what was the difference between the two teams? For me, the key to County’s success was having fun. They seemed to enjoy the occasion, and played with a freedom that created confidence. By contrast, Celtic seemed to be playing with the fear of failure.

I also see this scenario being played out at work. Those who are afraid to make a mistake, whose goal is compliance with the rules and minimum expectations rarely (actually, never) flourish. Those who take a few risks, follow their instincts and enjoy what they’re doing seem to generate much more productivity. Aye, it also applies to me - I get much more achieved, and much more satisfaction when I have fun, use my creativity and flair, and challenge a few norms along the way; than when I fall into the despair of box ticking and paper pushing. So next time that I’m in that pit, I’ll remind myself of Ross County, and (hopefully) put a smile on my face and some freedom into my work.

(By the way, I’m looking forward to an all first division final. So tomorrow I’ll be cheering for Raith Rovers - and I don’t support them either!)

The golden "golden goal"

You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.

Wayne Gretzky

So the Winter Olympics are over. It took me a wee while to get into them this time around, but I was captivated by the middle of the last week. Vancouver seems to have put on a great show.

Of course the pinnacle was Sunday night’s hockey final (with insincere apologies to any American readers). It was a fantastic match, with USA equalising with only 24.4 seconds left. Canada came back in overtime, to score the sudden death winner.

So Canada end up with more gold medals than any other nation at these Olympics. In fact they won more gold medals than any nation has ever won at a Winter Olympics.

Inevitably I think that there are a few things that we can learn from the match.

❑        Firstly, the Canadian victory was a real team effort. The superstar of Canadian hockey - Sidney Crosby - didn’t shine brightly on the night, or indeed throughout the tournament. For me Rick Nash was the man of the match. But the point is that the superstars on your team can’t win it alone. (I should note that Crosby scored the winning goal - almost inevitably!)

❑        Secondly, I love the drama of pulling the goal-tender with 90 seconds to go. It’s a lesson in concentrating resources where they are most needed. Aye, it is risky, but it also carries the hope of reward - which did materialise in this case.

❑        Thirdly, I admire the tenacity of the Americans. They pushed right to the end, never giving up hope.

❑        Finally, I was hugely impressed by the resilience of the Canadians. To come back out after the bitter blow of the late equaliser required courage and composure. We can all learn to bounceback from setbacks. If you don’t try, you won’t succeed - hence the quotation from “The Great One” at the start of this entry.

Go Sox!

We've just come back from a holiday in Boston (USA). We had a great time and there's lots to think through and write about. Still catching up with laundry, mail, photos etc, so in-depth thought will have to wait!

I felt that I had to publish this photo today. The Boston Red Sox are playing the Tampa Bay Rays in the baseball play-offs, but are currently being pounded. They are trailing 3-1 in the best of seven series, losing the last two games at home (1-9 and 4-13 respectively). Now I'm not an expert on baseball, but that's not good... not good at all.

But as any Red Sox fan (and it seems that almost everyone in Boston is part of the 'Sox nation') will tell you, things were worse when they played the New York Yankees in 2004. Then they were 3-0 down, but went on to win the next 4 games, clinching the series and going on to win their first World Series since 1918. They qualified as wild cards in 2004, as they did this year - a good omen?.

They might win tomorrow night and take the series back to Florida for the last two matches. Hope springs eternal so you never know - GO SOX!!

More Ryder Cup reflections

Following on from yesterday’s entry, there are a few other lessons that seem to come from the way that the American team won the Ryder Cup last week.

The principal issue is teamwork. This has been claimed by the Europeans as the decisive factor in their run of victories in recent Ryder Cups. The argument being that they worked better as a team, even though the Americans had the more gifted individual golfers.

Well, this year I think that Azinger did a fantastic job of planning and managing his approach to team-working. It appears that he grouped his players into 3 groups of 4 – based on the way that they lined up in Sunday’s singles matches, and in the paired events on Friday and Saturday. He combined is ‘flair/momentum’ players (Kim, Mahan, Leonard and Mickelson); his ‘rowdy, Southern boys’ (Weekley, Holmes, Perry and Furyk) and his ‘steady guys (Curtis, Cink, Cambell and Stricker).

I surmise that his Sunday philosophy was that if the first 4 players could build the right momentum, then they would sweep away their European opponents – this was only partly successful. (Although, as an aside, I think that the success of Anthony Kim against Sergio Garcia was hugely significant in both the outcome of the Ryder Cup and in establishing Kim as a mega-star of golf in the very near future.) By contrast the second group of 4 were all successful, and they completed the victory (rout) by each winning their matches. The crowd were really into it with these players – 2 of them from Kentucky where the match was being played. Finally, for Azinger, if his first two cohorts didn’t finish the job, then he had his steady guys at the end to grind out the necessary points.

The lesson here is about planning ahead and creating contingencies for a variety of scenarios.

But in reality, the Ryder Cup was won on Friday and Saturday. Again, Azinger worked with the same groups of 4 players, but he further divided them into pairs – mainly a blend of (Ryder Cup) youth and experience. It has long been a hobby horse of mine that people work best in consistent teams. There is a need to hold your nerve and let a team blend together. A couple of years ago, we brought a team together to implement a new software system. There were some initial difficulties and tensions, and some calls to change the composition – from within the team and from outside of it – but we stuck with it and let the sort out their differences. In the need we had a very successful implementation, in fact, the corporate Head of IT said that no other project had ever been so well managed.

Anyway, Azinger decided on his pairings and largely stuck by them. In the 16 matches on Friday and Saturday he used 7 pairings. By contrast, the European captain Nick Faldo used 13 pairings – which didn’t exactly indicate a high degree of confidence in his players (or his own decision making?).

There are other lessons that I could potentially draw out – like developing individual talents, using resources wisely, and about making sure that you have the right challenge mechanisms within your team, but enough already!

Congratulations to Azinger and his team for a well-planned and merited victory. And just for the record, Faldo didn’t get everything wrong – his choice of Ian Poulter as a wild card wasn’t universally popular over here (I didn’t agree with it at the time), but he was the most successful individual in the competition!

Some lessons from the Ryder Cup

I watched a chunk of the Ryder Cup last week. While I love watching sport, I didn’t really enjoy it. Firstly, I had a stinking cold (so was feeling very sorry for myself); secondly I don’t have a high regard for either of the captains; and thirdly we (Europe) lost. Actually we were thoroughly thrashed by a much better team. But there’s always next time!

Anyway, after the disappointment of losing I started to look more closely at the differences that there seemed to be between the teams, and while I have no inside information, the following things occurred to me.

Europe seemed to be over-confident, probably based on their status as favourites going into the competition. This was based on our run of success over the last decade or so. But the problem with this way of thinking is that this particular group of individuals had never played in the Ryder Cup before, and only 4 of them had any significant Ryder Cup experience (Garcia, Westwood, Harrington and Jimenez). Over-confidence and complacency are not good attitudes in any environment.

Another difference seemed to be that we were looking for things to whinge about. Whether it was Azinger’s (ill-advised) ‘pep talk’ to the fans, or the way that putts were or were not conceded. In golf and in life you need to be able to deal with these minor irritations and focus on the objective. Maybe there was a sense of wanting to win the competition while maintaining some sort of moral high ground.

But for me the biggest difference between the teams was teamwork, and I’ll deal with that in another post.

... while sitting on our bums

Aye the Olympics are over for another 4 years. I really enjoyed them - the spectacle, the sport and the success. So I thought it was time for a few reflections.

It's funny how we (in the UK) get carried away with a few medals here and there. OK, so we did exceed expectations, but the way that the media has been extolling their virutes, you could be forgiven for thinking that the athletes had found a cure for all forms of cancer or eradicated global poverty. The word "heroes" is being inappropriately and over-used. They did well and hopefully they will inspire young people (and some oldies) to take up sport.

Which brings me to my next point - look at the sports where we did win gold medals. The Aussies and others had a point about us winning when we were sitting on our bums (cycling - 8 golds; yachting -4; rowing - 2; everything else - 5). I heard another observation about winning at 'posh' sports - rowing and yacthing would fit that bill. As we begin the inexorable build up to 2012 and the games in London, will we be promoting a wide range of sports, offering equal access and opportunity to all? (I have my doubts!)

I liked some of the alternative medal tables that were produced by the BBC News magazine. This leads me to wonder how much money was spent per medal achieved by some of the 'successful' countries - and what are the issues of justice relating to that. Maybe our politicians could focus on some of these issues - rather than arguing about whether or not we should have a GB football team in the 2012 games.

But I don't want to be a complete party-pooper. My last reflection is on the fastest man on earth - also, in my opinion the coolest man on earth - Usain Bolt. How awesome was he? Three golds, three world records! Maybe I'll switch my allegiance to Jamaica - they do quite well in both the traditional and alternative medal tables!

Dreams come true - a parable

Question - What do you do if you're a talented Aussie cricketer unable to train with your team as a result of disciplinary action?

Answer - You make your international debut!

In a "Roy of the Rovers" tale, Luke Pomersbach turned up to watch a cricket match as a paying spectator, and was parking his car when the Aussie manager phoned and asked him to play for his country. One of the team was injured (putting on his trousers!) and Luke was called up. I loved this story when I heard it first of all - in an interview he seemed totally gob-smacked and nervously excited. Later on I discovered why he was available on the day - and I liked his reaction:

"I've made a couple of bad decisions and I just want to play cricket," he said.
"I am so glad I have had a little taste at this level and it is the best day of my life."

By the way, he did play quite well (though he didn't score the winning goal - unlike Roy).

Driving around today (a lot), I was thinking about this and how it could be turned into a parable. It has lots of ingredients and several endings. Care to make a suggestion?

And when did Roy of the Rovers get a website?

sportsmanship par excellence

I used to play football with a guy who occasionally infuriated my team-mates, but always made me smile. He never claimed a corner if he knew it wasn't, he frequently conceded debatable throw-ins to the opposition - not out of generosity but out of honesty. But he never shirked a tackle or played 'soft' - he was just principled and honest. (He was - and as far as I know is - a Christian who went into chaplaincy, I think.)

Anyway I was reminded of Honest Ewan's sportsmanship - and integrity - when I heard about a football match played last night.

Short version of long story - the match between Nottingham Forest and Leicester was abandoned (voluntarily by Forest) when one of the Leicester players had a heart attack. Forest were leading 1-0 at the time.

The re-arranged match was played last night - and Leicester allowed the Forest goalie to score straight from the kick-off, to restore the 1-0 lead. I think that this is a brilliant display of sportsmanship, and it fair warmed the cockles of my heart.

Check out the story over at the BBC website.